News and Articles

Thursday. 27 February 2020

This week the European Technology and Innovation Platform Smart Networks for Energy Transition (ETIP SNET) shares its mid-term key Research and Innovation priorities. Overall the roadmap estimates that 4 billion euros of investments are needed over the next 10 years to enable the transition towards a reliable and sustainable European electricity system with very high shares of renewables.

The 10 year ETIP SNET Research & Innovation (R&I) Roadmap 2020-2030 provides the system view to the entire energy transition by addressing a scope with smart electricity grids as its backbone, but going beyond: It also encompasses interactions with the gas and heat networks and focuses on integration of all flexibility solutions into the power system, including energy storage technologies.

“The purpose of ETIP SNET R&I Roadmap is to illustrate the view of all energy system stakeholder involved in ETIP SNET by identifying the range of actions (functionalities) to be addressed during the next decade, with the ultimate goal of reaching the full decarbonisation of the European energy system by 2050. …” says Guido Guida, Chairman of the ETIP SNET.

The evolution of the energy system in a context of a decarbonisation of the economy is based on the EU pillars of sustainability, security and market. The path towards 2050 implies progressive energy system functionalities to be implemented incrementally to ensure the timely evolution and achievement of decarbonisation targets. Hence, key R&I priorities need to be adequately defined and implemented.

For this reason, ETIP SNET has developed the “ETIP SNET R&I Roadmap 2020-2030” looking at a 10-year time frame until 2030. In 2018 the platform released the “ETIP SNET Vision 2050” with the purpose of inspiring the discovery of R&I challenges associated with a Year-2050 low-carbon, fully-integrated, and circular pan-European energy system. The ETIP SNET R&I Roadmap 2020-2030 gives more detailed recommendations on Energy system research, demonstration and deployment needs with the fundamental requirement that the European citizen is at the centre of this transition and key functionalities are satisfied by 2030.

The R&I activities for the decade to come, as described in the R&I Roadmap, synthesize consolidated and balanced stakeholder views and rely on systematic monitoring and reviews of national, European and international R&I projects.

The full implementation of all R&I activities is estimated to be 4 billion euros needed to finance research and innovation over the next decade for the energy system integration. The R&I priorities defined in the Roadmap are organised in 6 research areas and 12 functionalities (see figures below).

The ETIP SNET R&I Roadmap 2020-2030 is available for download here, it is an update and significant extension of the previous ETIP SNET R&I Roadmap 2017-2026

*The R&I Roadmap 2020-2030 may be updated in the parts dedicated to budget allocation after the finalization of the ETIP SNET Implementation Plan 2021-2024 in March/April 2020.